Chile has a rich, but poorly known history of placer gold mining. At present, this sector is almost nonexistent and there are some restrictions for its revival: disperse and partial information on existing resources and limited technical expertise to assess the potential of placer gold mine sites. This paper presents the background, methodology and results of the prioritization process of known prospects of this kind in Chile. This research was part of a publicly funded project aimed to incentivize the development of this industry. The ranking was carried out using the analytic hierarchy process, which allowed to include different quantitative and qualitative variables related to the economic potential, technical aspects, contextual viability and socioeconomic factors in the analysis. The results show that, despite the increasing relevance of environmental and community issues in mining development, the business potential and the economic/technical aspects are the main factors in the early selection of a site to advance in exploration and development activities. Both variables represented around 40% and 37% of weights in the final selection, respectively. In contrast, contextual viability and local socioeconomic impacts only accounted for the remaining 23%. This study also shows that the inclusion of experts with different backgrounds in the process enriches the analysis and does not significantly distort the final outcome of the prioritization. Finally, the relevance of using MCDM tools when assessing the attractiveness of mine sites for their development is highlighted, particularly when public funds for subsequent exploration activities are committed.
Maritime-type glaciers in the eastern Nyainqêntanglha Range, located in the southeastern part of the Tibetan Plateau, are an important water source for downstream residents and ecological systems. To better understand the variability of glaciers in this region, we used the band ratio threshold(TM3/TM5 for the Landsat TM /ETM+ and TM4/TM6 for Landsat OLI) to extract glacier outlines in ~1999 and ~2013. After that, we also generated a series of glacier boundaries and monitored glacier variations in the past 40 years with the help of the Chinese Glacier Inventory data(1975) and Landsat TM, ETM+ and OLI data. The total glacier area decreased by 37.69 ± 2.84% from 1975 to 2013. The annual percentage area change(APAC) was ~1.32% a-1 and ~1.29% a-1 in the periods 1975-1999 and 1999-2013, respectively. According to the lag theory, the reaction time is probably about 10 years and we discuss the variations of temperature and precipitation between 1965 and 2011. Temperature and precipitation increased between 1965 and 2011 at a rate of 0.34°C /10 a and 15.4 mm/10 a, respectively. Extensive meteorological data show that the glacier shrinkage rate over the period may be mainly due to increasing air temperature, while the increasing precipitation partly made up for the mass loss of glacier ice resulting from increasing temperature may also lead to the low APAC between 1999 and 2013. The lag theory suggests that glacier shrinkage may accelerate in the next 10 years. Small glaciers were more sensitive to climate change, and there was a normal distribution between glacier area and elevation. Glaciers shrank in all aspects, and south aspects diminished faster than others. 相似文献
Statistical studies of extremes are of interest in the climatic sciences, in particular trends of periods of unusually warm or cold weather, which could be labelled warm and cold spells, respectively. We study the yearly number of spells in Uppsala, Sweden which from a data‐analytic point of view truly are counts, and employ theory and methods from the field of regression models for counts. A possible trend for the period 1840–2012 was investigated. The trend for warm spells is positive and demonstrated to be larger in magnitude compared with the one for cold spells, and is found to be statistically significant. The methodology could be extended to analyse other climate indicators. 相似文献
Rapid urbanization and increased tourism around Nainital Lake in the Kumaun Himalayan region in north India has raised concerns
about sediment and water pollution. Lead-210 dated sediment cores from the lake represent ~95 years of accumulation and yield
a mean sedimentation rate of ~4.7 mm year−1. Total organic carbon (TOC), percent N and S and their atomic C/N and C/S ratios, stable isotopes (δ13C, δ15N, and δ34S), and specific biomarkers (n-alkanes and pigments) were measured in the core. Organic matter is primarily derived from in-lake algal production and TOC
flux varies from 1.0 to 3.5 g m−2 year−1. Sediments are anoxic (Eh −328 to −187 mV) and have low (0.10–0.30 g m−2 year−1) N, but high (0.37–1.0 g m−2 year−1) S flux. Shifts in δ13C, δ15N, and δ34S suggest in-lake microbial processes dominated by denitrification and sulfate reduction. The sediments are dominated by short-chain
hydrocarbons with low Carbon Preference Index values. The pigments indicate a gradual shift to cyanobacterial domination of
the phytoplankton community in recent years. Despite an increase in external input of nutrients, the trophic state of the
lake has remained largely unchanged, and the perceived human-induced impacts are limited. 相似文献
Activities of hexokinase (HK), pyruvate kinase (PK), superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) and Hsp70 level were measured to evaluate the response of the commercially important sea cucumber (Apostichopus japonicus Selenka) to rapid temperature changes in laboratory. Animals were subjected to a higher temperature (from 10 to 20℃) (Tinc treatment) or to a lower temperature (from 20 to 10℃) (Tddec treatment) for 72 h. At 1, 3, 12, 24, 72 h of exposure, animals were removed and prepared for further analysis. Results showed that the effect of acute temperature changes on enzyme activities was significant. In Tinc treatment, activities of SOD and CAT increased immediately. The significant enhancement of SOD and CAT activities suggested that oxidative stress increases significantly when ambient temperature increasing from 10 to 20℃. The up-regulation of Flsp70 in Tinc and Tdec treatments indicated that Hsp70 was a bioindicator of thermal stress in the sea cucumber, and the expression pattern depended on the thermal treatment. 相似文献
In continental areas, the maximum rainfall simulated with the Brazilian developments on the Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (BRAMS) occurs around 4?h earlier than the one observed with rain gauges. This work presents the successful implementation of a new convective trigger function (CTF) in the convective parameterization scheme used in BRAMS that corrects this misfit between model and observations. The importance of the CTF formulation on the diurnal cycle of rainfall over the Amazon Basin is reflected by the following numbers: Over Rondonia (SW Amazonia), the original version of BRAMS simulates the maximum rainfall at 1400 UTC (1000 LST), with the new CTF maximum shifting to 1800?UTC (1400?LST), while the S-band radar rainfall maximum is at 1900?UTC (1500?LST). This is attributed to two factors: (1) the new CTF is now coupled to the sensible and latent heat fluxes at surface; (2) during the early morning, the convective available potential energy is reduced. 相似文献
The level of Kluane Lake in southwest Yukon Territory, Canada, has fluctuated tens of metres during the late Holocene. Contributions
of sediment from different watersheds in the basin over the past 5,000 years were inferred from the elemental geochemistry
of Kluane Lake sediment cores. Elements associated with organic material and oxyhydroxides were used to reconstruct redox
fluctuations in the hypolimnion of the lake. The data reveal complex relationships between climate and river discharge during
the late Holocene. A period of influx of Duke River sediment coincides with a relatively warm climate around 1,300 years BP.
Discharge of Slims River into Kluane Lake occurred when Kaskawulsh Glacier advanced to the present drainage divide separating
flow to the Pacific Ocean via Kaskawulsh and Alsek rivers from flow to Bering Sea via tributaries of Yukon River. During periods
when neither Duke nor Slims river discharged into Kluane Lake, the level of the lake was low and stable thermal stratification
developed, with anoxic and eventually euxinic conditions in the hypolimnion. 相似文献
Although the Songnen Plain in the northeastern China was developed relatively late in the temperate zone of the world, its eco-environment has changed greatly. This paper analyzes the changes of land cover and the rates and trends ofdesertification during the past 100 years in the Songnen Plain. According to the macroscopic analysis, we find that the eco-environment in the plain has reached to the threshold of catastrophic change since the 1950s. The Thorn Needle Catastrophic Model was used to determine and validate this conclusion. Human activities, including large-scale construction projects, such as huge dams and dikes, and excessive grazing were the primary factors contributing to regional eco-environmental catastrophe. And irrational reclamation of the wilderness also affected the eco-environmental change. The results reveal the complex human-land interactions. 相似文献
Analytic solutions to continuous thrust-propelled trajectories are available in a few cases only. An interesting case is offered by the logarithmic spiral, that is, a trajectory characterized by a constant flight path angle and a fixed thrust vector direction in an orbital reference frame. The logarithmic spiral is important from a practical point of view, because it may be passively maintained by a Solar sail-based spacecraft. The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic study concerning the possibility of inserting a Solar sail-based spacecraft into a heliocentric logarithmic spiral trajectory without using any impulsive maneuver. The required conditions to be met by the sail in terms of attitude angle, propulsive performance, parking orbit characteristics, and initial position are thoroughly investigated. The closed-form variations of the osculating orbital parameters are analyzed, and the obtained analytical results are used for investigating the phasing maneuver of a Solar sail along an elliptic heliocentric orbit. In this mission scenario, the phasing orbit is composed of two symmetric logarithmic spiral trajectories connected with a coasting arc. 相似文献